Poems About IRES Projects

Inspiration for art can come form the weirdest places

A Haiku About Nitrate Isotopes (Joe's Project)
By Kyle

Joe came and sampled

For two days out of sixty

More work is ahead

A Sonnet About Collecting Tissue Samples From Corals (Ana's Project)
by Alanna

Oh corals that I smell

Little white and porous blocks

Like little birds within your flocks

On the table do you dwell

Knowing not you soon face hell

The airbrush awaits and soon knocks

Away falls your tissue like golden locks

Why your little bodies we destroy?

To study the genes of your tulips

And publish the findings in a journal

For the science we employ

The sacrificial polyps

Despite the methods most infernal

A Limerik About Groundwater Sampling (Alanna's Project)

by Kyle

Oh pit on the beach you're a crater

You took days of hot sweat and hard labor

But now it is done

It was all in good fun

The results could not have been greater

A Pontoon About Uranium Dating (Kyle's Project)

by Alanna

For Uranium, Thorium, Lead

To know the dates I need

238, 234, 210

The estuarine sediment

To know the dates I need

clean, Clean, CLEAN!

The estuarine sediment

Off to the Neptune do you go

clean, Clean, CLEAN!

For Uranium, Thorium, Lead

Off to the Neptune do you go

238, 234, 210

A Freeform Poem About Pb Isotopes (Chia-Te's Project)

by Joe (with a lot of help from Kyle and Alanna)

There's dust in the air I swear

Says the man whose skin is fair

We're not sure why it's there

Maybe we should be aware

Where all this lead is coming from?

Ein Avdat and the Negev Desert

Despite the blazing sun and searing heat, our intrepid group decided to venture out into the unforgiving Negev Desert of southern Israel for a day of adventure (and minor heat exhaustion). One of our main stops was at Ein Avdat National Park.

Ein Avdat is canyon hidden away in the desert with some pretty spectacular sights to see. Walking in to the canyon, the first thing you notice is how dry and desolate things seem. Steep chalk limestone walls rise up on either side, which narrow as you travel further in to the canyon. Depressions and caves of differing sizes can be seen high up on the cliffs due to how easily the soft limestone weathers over time.

There is a fair bit of vegetation, however, all of which is extremely well adapted to live with very little water. The ground in this area is very salty, and some of the plants deal with this problem by secreting excess salts on to the outside of their leaves. You can easily notice this by rubbing your fingers on the leaves and tasting the gritty substance that comes off. This adaptation also helps some of the larger plants compete for habitat, as the morning dew helps deposit this salt around its base, keeping the area free of competing plants.

This lone large tree is a pistachio tree, the seed of which must have blown in from far away a long time ago. While this plant cannot normally survive in the desert of Israel, this individual is thriving. This canyon is a special place where water flows far more often, due to the many natural springs that emanate from the canyon walls further in, as we will see below. 

Life here just seems to find a way - this little guy was hanging out underneath the pistachio tree, and joined us for a quick water break in the shade.

Continuing in to the canyon, we finally come upon flowing water! This is actually a pretty amazing sight, as the Negev desert as a whole is extremely dry. These natural springs serve as an oasis for both the natural biology and for human populations, with tribes of ancient nomadic people using the water to survive for thousands of years.

Eventually we came to a big open pool with a waterfall at the end. We didn’t see any fish living in the water, but it harbored a large amount of algal material, and even a few little crabs. A family of doves also found refuge in the shade along the travertine near the waterfall.

The area has also been used by Catholic monks during certain periods of time, who took refuge in the remote caves in order to study their faith away from distractions, while still having access to life giving water.

Speaking of life giving water, nearby the canyon, and just outside the Ein Avdat National Park, we visited an ancient Nabataean water cistern that was carved into the ground. The Nabataean people lived in this area over 2000 years ago, loosely controlling a long trading route connected by these oases and water cisterns.

Cisterns like these were designed to gently collect water that flowed along nearby drainage routes during large, but infrequent, storms. Small diversions were built in to these drainages in such a way as to collect drinking water for storage without collecting large amounts of sediment. These diversions were built to be highly discrete, so that people other than the Nabataeans would never notice them. When threatened by foreign armies who sought to conquer them, the Nabataeans could shelter themselves in the desert where no other people could survive, largely due to these ingenious secret water cisterns.  

The Misadventures of the Masada Seven

During the second weekend in July, the group ventured out on our second major trip of the summer, with plans to visit the ancient fortress of Masada, as well as the Dead Sea.  The adventure started out quite normally, with a bunch of us cramming ourselves into a mini van and settling in for the ~2.5 hour drive up to Masada.  The plan was to get up there early, while it still wasn't too hot, and perhaps hike up the mountain to explore the fortress on foot.  It didn't take too long before we ran into a slight problem... we were low on fuel.  And, being a Saturday morning, we were right in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holiday for rest and reflection, during which time most businesses in Israel are closed.  So, naturally, we had some trouble finding a gas station that was both open and had pumping instructions in English.  Things were looking a little grim when the fuel light came on, until we came around the bend and saw this beautiful sight:

Our savior over the horizon!

This was great!  We weren't going to run out of fuel in the middle of the desert after all!  Solid development.  After pulling into the station outside the very small town of Tzukim (which is, ironically, just 10 km south of the town of Tsofar.  So close, and yet Tsofar!) several of us jumped out to grab some drinks and snacks, while the van was to be filled with fuel.  

Before moving on in the story, there is one important thing you should know: this was a diesel powered van, not gasoline powered, something that had been discussed several times previously.  Unfortunately, that did not stop one of us (who will remain anonymous, alone in his or her shame) from quickly and accidentally adding ~15 L of gasoline into our diesel fuel tank.  Excellent.

At first we thought "how bad could it be?  Let's just keep filling it up with diesel, dilute out the gasoline, and move on with our lives!"  In fact, this is precisely what a passerby suggested we do, saying "it will be just fine!" 

Thankfully, a majority of us are scientists (or at least attempting to become scientists), and so were a bit hesitant to accept this idea.  I pulled out my phone to investigate the potential consequences of such an action (the internet is great, huh?) and found this explanation:     

At high enough concentrations of gasoline, "whether a modern clean CRD diesel or an old indirect injection unit, burning straight gasoline or highly diluted diesel fuel will almost certainly result in catastrophic damage to the mighty diesel engine... this fuel introduced into a diesel engine either won't ignite or will ignite at the wrong time causing severe detonation... the shock wave effects of uncontrolled detonation can easily destroy (reciprocating engine components)...  Running thin, low viscosity gasoline through a diesel fuel system would starve it for lubrication and cause those sensitive components to rub together (metal-to-metal) eventually destroying them."

Huh.  So, basically something like this...

In all seriousness, though, had we just decided to drive away, we likely would have ended up stranded somewhere in the the middle of the desert anyway, with a "catastrophically" damaged vehicle.  Good thing we didn't listen to that advice! 

This left us with only a few options.  The first was to try and siphon our own fuel out of the van.  While none of us are accomplished gas thieves, we did manage to make a good attempt at it using random supplies we found in and around the gas station...

Our foray into the criminal underworld of self-gas-theft was ultimately unsuccessful. 

Unfortunately, there appeared to be an anti-siphoning device somewhere inside the fuel line, which in nearly every single other situation would have been a good thing.  Darn technology!  At this point, we decided that it would likely be best to just call the rental car company and have them bring us a new van.  In the end, this meant waiting up to 3 hours for another van to be brought down from Be'er Sheva, a town over 130 km away to the north.

3 hours stranded at a gas station in the middle of the desert... sounds like an absolute blast, right?  Well, not to be deterred from enjoying our day off research, we found a great way to pass the time: playing Uno!  Somebody randomly found a whole deck of Uno playing cards inside the van, which came in handy while trying to pass the time.  Thankfully, this particular gas station had a large covered patio outside with plenty of places to sit and hang out.  Shade?  Check.  Food and drink?  Check.  Playing cards and a bunch of friends?  Check.  It could have been a whole lot worse!

With only 4 seats per table (which were bolted to the ground), the players in last place after each round of Uno had to stand for the next round.  Naturally this led to some pretty tough competition.  Things may have been said that can never be unsaid.... mostly consisting of  "Draw 2, you ____!"  Good times were had by all. 

In the end, time passed by reasonably quickly, given the circumstances.  Our new van was significantly smaller than the original, but at least it had the correct fuel in the tank!  We we piled in and continued our drive up towards Masada as quickly as the speed limit would allow. 

Ultimately, we arrived at the desert fortress by around 4 pm, which only allowed an hour or so to check it out.  This also meant taking the cable car up to the top instead of hiking up, which, given the time of day and the scorching heat, was likely the better option anyway.

Masada is an ancient fortress situated at the top of a high mesa at the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea.  It was constructed between 37 and 31 BCE by Herod the Great, a Roman client king of the land of Judea, who also ruled during the time of Jesus's birth.  It once contained numerous fortifications, storehouses and palaces built by Herod in order to watch over the desert and the Dead Sea.  It was also the location of a great Roman siege towards the end of the First Jewish-Roman War, where almost 1000 Jewish rebels and their families ultimately committed mass suicide rather than submit and become Roman slaves.  Today it is an Israeli National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a museum and a large cable car system to transport visitors up the shear 400 m cliffs to the top of the mesa where the ruins stand.  For more information on the ruins and history of the site, check out the official webpage here.

We unfortunately only had about an hour to tour around all of the ruins after our little pit stop in Tzukim, but it was a pretty amazing visit nonetheless.  The views of the desert canyons, layered rock-salt formations and the Dead Sea were a spectacular backdrop for the ruins of the fortress, which included guard houses, storerooms, huge underground water cisterns, a working aqueduct system, temples, palaces and more.  Take a look at the slideshow below to see some of the pictures we took during our quick tour of this fascinating archaeological site!

Trip to Masada

Shemitta at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens

A few weeks ago, Alanna and I made the ~4 hour trek up north to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to meet with our respective collaborators. In between these meetings, however, we had a chance to do a little bit of tourism, and found ourselves wandering the grounds of the beautiful Jerusalem Botanical Gardens.

The attendant who let us into the gardens suggested that we go "check out the dinosaurs," which was a little confusing to us, since we thought this was a garden, and not a museum.  While wandering around near the entrance, this was actually suggested to us several times.  It wasn't until we came across the following sign that this made a bit more sense:

After reading the sign, we looked around and noticed that large areas of the gardens appeared to be unattended and left fallow.  It turned out that we were visiting the gardens during Shemitta (or Shmita, literally Sabbatical Year), which is the seventh year of the seven year agricultural cycle outlined in the Torah for the Land of Israel.  During this time, certain agricultural practices, such as plowing, planting and harvesting, are forbidden on land owned by Jewish farmers.  Activities that sustain or protect the land from damage may be performed, however any actions designed to enhance or improve growth may not.  (For more information about this Jewish tradition, see this webpage.)

This also explained why there was a dinosaur exhibit set up on the grounds: large areas of the gardens were closed and left fallow, so they set up a separate attraction for the visitors.  It also explained why we had passed so many farms and greenhouses on the drive up that appeared to be closed and barren.

Thankfully, we were not about to let the year-long holiday stop us from fully exploring the Botanical Gardens the best we could, and despite the fact that parts of the garden were closed, we still found plenty of beautiful groves full of plants and flowers from all around the world, including many examples of plants mentioned in the bible that are important for Jewish and Christian cultures.  Check out some pictures of gardens below.

Grape vines growing on a gazebo, surrounded by fallow bread wheat fields. 

Alanna placing a note containing her promise of a good deed into a hanging capsule in the gazebo as a commitment to the ideals of the Shemitta year.

A small canal left to run dry during the seventh year.

Many beautiful plants and flowers flourish in the garden despite lacking the personal care and water they normally receive. 

Depth profile water sampling

Yesterday (July14) Adina, Joe and I joined the NMP cruise to sample water from different depth at "A" point at Gulf of Aqaba.

This map shows where point A is. It's at the adjacent point of boards of Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Map is from Chase et al., 2011

Since we were on the big research vessel instead of small speed boat, I didn't get seasick at all. The marine team of IUI is excellent, they operate the research vessel very well and fulfill varies of requirements from different research. In order to get water samples from different depth, we need to deploy go-flow bottles on a rosette into the ocean. Those bottles were open when they went down to the water, the way we collect water is that we send a signal to close the lids while we lift it up, we can control lids for every single bottle when we want so we can collect water from different depth in different bottle.

Marine team is deploying go-flow bottles on a rosette

    After they lifted the rosette back to the deck, we can collect water samples from an outlet near the bottom of the bottles.

Researchers were collecting water from go-flow bottles

One part of my research target is to measure trace metal composition in particulate matter of seawater, so other than filtered seawater, we need to collect unfiltered seawater. After I was back to the lab, I filtered ~5L water to get particulate matter on polycarbonate filters, then I will do acid digestion then do following analyses.

I was setting up filtration system for particulate matter in seawater

 With trace metal composition in different component of the seawater and sources to seawater, we will be able to find out what control trace metal distribution in Gulf of Aqaba. Joe has a different target, he wants to use nitrogen isotopes to identify potential nutrient sources to the gulf and the mixing in the gulf, also the level of nitrogen fixation by biomass. 

Adventures on the Low Seas

Hello. My name is Joe. And I get seasick. Like, Eilat.

It's true!

During my time in graduate school at UC Santa Cruz, I have gone on a number of scientific expeditions out on the open seas, and my experience has ranged from "solid - would go again," to "completely useless - why did I do this to myself!?!" Of course, that was in California, where the waves look something like...

Ok, maybe not quite that bad, but still, Monterey Bay seems to kick the crap out of me. Thankfully, here in the Gulf of Eilat, the conditions are supposed to be much more calm. Something more like...

Ahh, much better! However, given that in about one week I would be heading out into the gulf to collect seawater samples for my summer project, I figured I better give it a try first. Thankfully, on Sunday we had just that opportunity. Dr. Adi Torfstein, who is collaborating with both Chia-Te and Kyle on their IRES projects, was leading a short day cruise on the IUI vessel Sam Rothberg RV in order to collect and redeploy his moored sediment traps, and this was a perfect opportunity not only for us to see how this field sampling is done, but also for me to test out my Gulf of Eilat sea-legs. 

Marine sediment traps are essentially stationary open containers that oceanographers place into the ocean in order to collect particles that are sinking down towards the sea floor. These particles can be composed of material such as organic matter and fecal pellets, shells of dead marine organisms, mineral dust, and more. Collecting and analyzing this material allows scientists to better understand the processes that move matter and energy from the surface ocean down to the sea floor. This information is crucial for helping scientists study a variety of important subjects, including deep sea biology, ocean biogeochemistry, ocean circulation, paleoceanography and climate change.

On this short cruise, we left the dock at 8:30 am and headed out to a location near the edge of Israel's territorial waters, no more than about 2-3 km offshore of the lab. The shelf of the gulf is so steep that even at this short distance off shore the water depth was already over 700 m. Once we arrived near the station, the crew used an acoustic pinging device to send a signal to the underwater traps, telling them to release from the bottom and float up towards the surface. Once we spotted the yellow floats that brought the lines to the surface, the ship's crew carefully retrieved the traps one by one in order to bring the precious samples of sinking particles back to the lab. 

Crew of the Sam Rotherberg RV recovering the yellow floats that sit at the top of the sediment trap line. 

Dr. Torfstein helping to recover the first of several sediment trap pairs. This trap sits at the shallowest water depth, collecting material that has been sinking for only a short period of time. 

Sediment traps safely on board the RV. Notice the fluffy brown material above the black rubber base - this is the sample we want.

The traps were deployed along a vertical line at a number of different water depths in order to study how these processes change with depth in the ocean. In addition, a larger trap called a McLane sediment trap, consisting of a big funnel and a rotating carousel of sample bottles, allowed for time series sampling, where each sample corresponds to a shorter period of time (usually 1-2 days). This way, scientists can study how the flux of material downward changes with time as well as with depth.

McLane trap being recovered for sample retrieval. 

Chia-Te and Adina helping to remove the time-series samples from the McLane trap.

Look, I'm helping too! (By staying out of the way!)

The samples were brought back to the lab and stored in a refrigerator over night. This allows any remaining sediment to settle to the bottom, and the cold helps to minimize any bacterial activity that might alter the chemical signature of the sediment samples. 

After all of the traps had been recovered, the ship headed back to shore in order to prepare the traps for redeployment. Kyle and Chia-Te headed back out to help with this process, but for me, this was the end of my little seasickness experiment. The verdict?

I like Eilat a lot more!

I didn't get sick! Conditions were not as calm and beautiful as they can be, as the ship's crew said that it was as choppy and rough as it ever gets here. But, if this was as bad as it ever gets...

View of the IUI lab and the local Marine Discovery Center from the deck of the RV. Even on a windy day, the sea is fairly calm. Nice, huh?

...then I think that is a good sign for my health and happiness come cruise time next week. Cruises in Eilat should be a cake walk compared to Monterey Bay.